Weekend Edition: Exploring Mid-Summer Garden Delights

and a garden fruit pie recipe using chia seeds!

Gardens and Childhood Memories

When I was a little girl, summers were often spent working in the garden: weeding, deadheading (jobs I was NOT a fan of… and we spent a good deal of time doing) and picking fruit and vegetables. 

I have many fond memories of wandering around the garden and plucking off the occasional fruit or veggie to munch while getting other jobs done—my garden work tax, if you will. The juicy, green crunch of a string bean, the sweet and tangy warmth of a sun ripened cherry tomato, the sticky sweetness of a strawberry that probably should have been picked a couple days before, were all constants of that garden work tax.

To me, the garden has always been a place of exploration and experimentation as much as a place to grow yummy foods and pretty flowers.

One of my favorite things to do was to pick fruit from the garden and make a fruit pie or cobbler. Growing up in Oregon, fruit pies–berry especially–were almost part of the local summer anthem. Summer was not summer without at least a few fruit pies. The pies often started out as a dinner dessert but any leftovers followed through as sweet, delicious breakfasts. The one time we could actually get away with eating dessert for breakfast! 

It wasn’t uncommon for my friends and I to go out into the garden, and wander into nearby fields where we knew wild blackberries grew, to pick whatever fruit was ripe, carry it all home and make pies. Sometimes the pies were single fruit pies (like blackberry) but more often than not they were “everything but the compost pile” fruit pies–I.E. whatever fruit we could find that was ripe.

Experimenting with Fruit Pies

My ‘Everything but the Compost Pile’ Garden Fruit Pie I made this week

So now that I finally have access to my own garden here in Asturias, I’m happily reliving those fond memories of Summer. Plucking fruit straight off the vine to munch on and making berry pies. And just like when I was a kid, my pies always tend to be on a side of experimentation–ok my cooking and baking, in general.

This week I experimented with one of those “everything but the compost pile” fruit pies. I was able to scrounge up a mixture of ripe raspberries, blackberries, golden ground cherries, and strawberries. Plus I decided to try some of the apples and pears that had fallen off the trees that weren’t entirely ripe, but ripe enough to add a pie.

Usually in pies you’ll add something like cornstarch to thicken up the mixture inside so all the fruit and juices inside the pie keep their form when you cut out a slice. I decided to experiment and use chia seeds instead of cornstarch. 

Chia seeds are great for creating that gelatinous effect while also adding fiber, protein, omega-3 fatty acids and other good nutrients.

So really, it means that using Chia makes the pie healthy… riiiight?!

I’d never used Chia seeds in a pie before, but I did make a berry jam with them last year that turned out really well. So I figured, let’s try it!